On the one hand, like many other Bethesda games, when Skyrim doesn't work, it ranges from barely noticable things to instant crash to desktop without any effort towards a crash report to let you know what happened. Tragically, usage of mods is almost mandatory to fix many a bug, but just doing the minimum unofficial patch makes the game that much more playable on its own.

On the other hand, like many other Bethesda games, when Skyrim works, it WORKS. An expansive world, plenty of people to meet, items to pick up and screw about with, powers to obtain, all sorts of fun stuff. Some quests are more enjoyable than others, and difficulty scaling does get wonky sometimes (I'm looking at you, Silver Hand), but when you get into a groove and figure out how you want your levels to be obtained with the game's unique levelling system (eschewing straight up EXP for skill progression), the world becomes that much better to explore. As a person with over 1000 hours in the game, I should know. V:

On the one hand, like many other Bethesda games, when Skyrim doesn't work, it ranges from barely noticable things to instant crash to desktop without any effort towards a crash report to let you know what happened. Tragically, usage of mods is almost mandatory to fix many a bug, but just doing the minimum unofficial patch makes the game that much more playable on its own. On the other hand, like many other Bethesda games, when Skyrim works, it WORKS. An expansive world, plenty of people to meet, items to pick up and screw about with, powers to obtain, all sorts of fun stuff. Some quests are more enjoyable than others, and difficulty scaling does get wonky sometimes (I'm looking at you, Silver Hand), but when you get into a groove and figure out how you want your levels to be obtained with the game's unique levelling system (eschewing straight up EXP for skill progression), the world becomes that much better to explore. As a person with over 1000 hours in the game, I should know. V: